The Don Rosen Show (Hour 2)

I have three kids. I have a 15-year-old, a 12-year-old, and a 8-year-old. It's hard because it changes.

I just showed them the other night the movie One Flore over the Coco's Nest.

And I said, Mommy seems good, doesn't she?

I think against that backdrop, I really shine.

The wind blows hard against this mountain side. Across the sea, into my soul.

It reaches into where I cannot hide. Setting my feet upon the road.

Hard as old as old as my memories. My body burns in just like flame.

Suck where between the slow and soft machine.

Swear I find myself again.

QEA laser down my cold, did I miss travel?

QEA laser through the dark, this is the night.

Highlight 707, make it 708 at WRJ and radio. I'm Don Rosen, a civic media station.

Long-town radio refreshed.

Yeah, Jim Maseer here with a whole bunch of stuff, including old shoes and bottles and things, and very valuable.

Is that water bottle there? Is that anything valued to it whatsoever?

Well, now that looks like it can be worth a fortune. What is that?

Wait a second, your microphone's not working. Is that plugged in your microphone there?

No.

It's looking right there. Is it plugged in?

No, is it plugged in?

No, it's not plugged in there. The first one.

No, no, right there. Right over there. Somebody unplugged your microphone.

The first one. Yeah. Plug it in there.

Let it go in? It's got to go in. Let me see that thing.

I'll tell you what. Let's hear a little bit more of Mr. Mr. Relay.

There we go. There we go. Now you're in there. Somebody came in and unplugged that.

Somebody knew I was going to be here, I guess. Wow.

Okay, so we talked about that. It's very expensive bottle of water to have there.

Is that from old Racine? Oh, yes, my gosh. It's probably 100 years old.

Is that from the hand-white hand pantry?

It says Piggly Wiggly on it, so I don't know.

Piggly Wiggly, the very first supermarket in America.

That's right. Yes, that's South.

Yes, the very first supermarket ever. Piggly Wiggly.

Yep. And this time around to this day.

Okay, so let's talk about some of this stuff here.

This is some of your favorite rare recinging items.

Now this is your personal collection.

This is not, you know, this is you collect a lot of this stuff.

Oh, yeah. Now I've been to your place at the Von Schrader place, which is now called what?

It's called the Racine Business Center.

And you have a space there with old signs and stuff.

Oh, you name it. We got it there.

Is it open to the public to take a look at?

We have certain days.

We have another open house coming up April 27th on a Saturday.

The entire building will be open just as it was for our last Christmas open house,

where when you were there, Don.

But yeah, the entire building will be open, including the,

it's called the Spirit of Racine Antroponous Exhibits.

So we'll be open then, too.

Okay, so let's talk about some of the stuff you brought in today.

Oh, sure.

I got, well, some of my favorite things that I have in my collection will start off with signs.

Anybody remember the old uptown library?

Well, they closed many, many years ago, but there used to be a sign on the side of that building.

It was actually a large 10-foot porcelain neon sign.

It said public library.

It also had the words education and information.

Well, when they closed the library, I thought, my gosh.

What was that?

Uptown, I think it was on...

What's there now, do you know?

It's still there.

Yeah, it's still there.

The building is still there.

Do you know what it is, though?

It's some kind of private...

Okay.

Used to be some kind of accounting business.

I don't know what it is now, but it's still there.

So I dealt with the city and I eventually got it.

When I saw it from the road, it looked like maybe four feet.

But actually, when I got it, it turned out to be well over 10 feet.

So that's in my basement right now.

We moved it downstairs before I had a rec room put in.

Now, that's going to be a permanent fixture.

So whoever buys the house someday is going to have a nice library sign in their basement.

You know what they're supposed to have?

They're on to the old Dick Van Dycheau when he was buying a house.

And he had this big rock in the basement.

And they couldn't get rid of the rock.

And so whoever bought the house had to have that giant rock.

Oh, yeah.

That's my problem, too.

So that's it.

You get the house and the sign.

And the sign?

And a few other things, which I'll talk about, too.

Why can't you get it out?

Well, you don't want to.

No, no.

We have a wall down there now.

You put the sign and then build the wall?

Yes.

We put the sign in first before we put the rec room in.

Okay.

So it's going to be hard.

You have to tear down the wall, I guess.

But in the spirit I've ever seen on Truppenewer's exhibit,

we also have the Daniel Hall sign.

I've seen that on the building.

Yes.

Yes.

A nice red one.

That's there.

And then our favorite and best known,

is the Old Nelson dime store sign.

Now, is this the one from Highway 20, or is this the one from Douglas Avenue?

No, Highway 20.

That's the big neon sign.

I think it's maybe 14, 15 feet.

And that was removed by a private collector of old advertising.

And it was moved to Waukeshaw.

Well, about a couple years later, I saw it at an auction, an online auction.

But it was misidentified as being from Kanocha.

I recognize it right away as the Nelson dime store sign.

So he put a bid on it.

And my gosh, we got that thing by, I think, $25 higher than the previous builder of bidder.

So we were so fortunate to bring it back to recene.

Now, let's talk about that second.

Yeah.

Nelson's dime store.

Yep.

My mother, I used to bring her there when she moved to this area.

I used to bring her there and she loved it.

The old wooden creaky floors.

Absolutely.

And all the little knick knacks in.

And I was a rye.

I used to have there.

My wife and I bought plastic insects when we were there.

I never seen them in a store before we bought them.

And to this day, years later, we leave them all over the house.

So, for example, you'll go for the toothpaste.

There'll be a tarantula in there.

Plastic tarantula.

And if you open the shower, go to the shower on the, on the, on the bathroom on the tub floor.

We'll put different spiders and different insects there.

And even though I know they're in the house plastic,

they still do.

You do a jump.

I never want to go to your house now.

Yes.

Well, hard couldn't take it.

Well, this is how we know if people are spying guests come in

and they look in your medicine cabinet.

Oh.

If we were a scream while they were in the medicine cabinet.

And the dania sign, the dania hall sign.

Yeah.

That was on the straight street.

On the straight street.

Yeah.

Building is still there.

Yeah.

It's pretty much empty.

Yeah.

Okay.

But the Nelson dime store sign.

It came back to receipt on a flatbed truck.

It took four guys to bring it up to the second floor, to the museum.

Now this is the one the Von Schrader building.

Correct.

Yeah.

That's right.

And you probably saw it.

Yeah, I did.

But I think it's one of our most popular items inside the exhibit.

But everybody remembers the Nelson dime store sign.

Another famous name and rescind is Dr. Schupe.

And I was fortunate enough to get the original formula books

from his practice.

Now, as many of you know, Dr. Schupe made products

such as rheumatism cure, worm cure for children, pain panacea.

And by the way, that contains 17% alcohol for your pain panacea.

So no wonder it killed a pain.

He also made fever cures.

By the way, a lot of those elixirs.

Oh, yeah.

Out of alcohol in the back.

Absolutely.

Because that's how they make you feel good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

17% for this one.

You know, another product he made was the magic ointment.

And actually, Don, I'm going to show you the original formula for the magic ointment.

Now, that is...

Is this his handwriting?

I don't know who that is.

But here's the product that it goes with.

Okay.

And that's for piles.

We know it now as for hemorrhoids.

But as you can see, the original formula is there.

How he made...

He had piles.

I've heard them say that before.

Hemorrhoids.

Piles.

Yeah.

They don't use that term anymore.

No, no, no, no.

My mother used to always say, don't sit on that cement sidewalk.

You're going to get piles.

I thought, what the heck is a pile?

But you know what, though.

Yeah.

That's a gross name for what it is.

Hemorrhoids isn't much better.

Yeah, right.

But piles.

You're bringing back a memory here.

I've heard somebody talk about the piles.

You get piles.

So this is the magic ointment.

Yes, the magic stuff in here.

Oh, yes.

Yeah, it's still there.

How many years ago?

Oh, that's probably over a hundred years old.

I think it works.

If you have a problem, you can try it, don't.

I sit in this chair anymore, I will.

So this is the actual formula for all this products.

And look at this.

You actually have the book.

Yep.

Yeah, it was given to me by an old pharmacist from Racine,

who had it in his care for many, many, many years.

And this is how to make it.

At four gallons of union, whatever salad oil it looks like.

Salad oil, okay.

He spelled salad S-A-L-I-D.

Uh-huh.

Salas, I think it's spelled salad, is it?

No, salad oil.

So this has salad oil in it.

Right.

Look at what's in this.

Yes.

Yes.

Over a hundred years old.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

Almost everything I have in my collection from Dr. Shoop

is over a hundred years old.

We're going to take a picture of this and put it on our Facebook page today.

The piles.

Oh, yeah.

Remember that.

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, let me give this back to you so I don't destroy it.

But if you had a problem, he had a...

He looks at my hair.

I don't want to hold that.

You don't know where it's been, right?

You know what?

You're absolutely right.

People who had piles probably had their fingers all over that.

Where did you get that?

I've been collecting Racine memorabilia for over 45 years, Don.

So...

Would you get that one?

This one?

I don't remember.

I have no clue where I got this.

You haven't used it, have you?

Well, it's...

I hope not.

No.

No, I have not.

I have not.

No.

But his most popular product was the Dr. Shoop restorative.

I'm going to itchy now.

Take a look at that.

What it promises to cure.

Okay.

This is Dr. Shoop's restorative, is it?

His most popular product.

Stomach, kidneys, and heart.

Right.

And, Don, we have Cardiac Doctors, you and I.

So, this might be something that might help us.

I have a full bottle at home, by the way.

This is an empty one.

It also helps liver and pelvic organs.

Oh, yes.

It cures diptheria into digestion.

Mm-hmm.

Bliquidus, is that what you're saying?

I...

John does.

Mm-hmm.

Torpedo liver.

Consumption.

Brights disease.

Diabetes.

Heart troubles.

Womanly troubles.

Nervousness.

Sleeplessness.

Impure blood.

All forms of nervousness in men and women.

Makes each organ do its duty by bringing back the nerve force

that alone operates the organs.

Yuck.

Now, last week, Don, I passed a kidney stone, which was very rare.

I never heard about that.

Yes.

Did you use this stuff?

I should have.

Had I known about it, I would have.

All right.

Tim, the series here.

Oh, look at this.

We've got to take some pictures of this stuff.

You holding this stuff.

We'll get your teaspoon.

Looks like you're taking some of this.

Yeah.

It's seven.

Seven, nineteen.

WRJ.

Here's how that song got its name.

A George Michael, and I figured the other member of the group

went.

They were staying at his mother's house because they were always on the road

and sitting in their own flat.

They were just stayed at his mother's house.

It was cheaper and easier.

And he left a note on the door for his mother.

And it said, before you go, go, wake me up.

It's only you said, wake me, wake me up up before you go.

That's what it said.

Wake me up up before you go.

And he just changed it.

Wake me up before you go, go.

He just says the title.

That's where I got the thing from the note on the door.

Something like that.

Hey, if you're looking for a Valentine's gift, I got the perfect gift for you.

Ready for this?

A bottle of Dr. Shoop's Alexa to fix the piles.

She'd love it.

Give that to your sweetie fellow.

Oh, all right.

This is the first hour I was sad and I was crying.

This was gross in the out.

Okay.

Jim, the seriously, we're talking about some old things from his collection.

Old Racine.

And of course, Dr. Shoop, the Dr. Shoop building downtown.

It was named after Dr. Shoop.

Was this guy a real doctor?

Oh, yes.

He was actually a real doctor.

Because I'm looking at some of the ingredients on this.

Salad dressing and salad oil.

Yeah.

He started off practicing then he went into patent medicines.

But some of his ingredients in the products here, I got the ingredients from the formula books.

They include boric acid.

And of course, alcohol.

This one product here contains 17%.

Other products in his formulas were potash, tannic acid, turpentine.

Imagine they have done turpentine, blood root, and something called nux vomica.

I looked it up and it comes from the strict nine tree.

Strict nine is a poison.

Very poisonous.

That can kill you in seconds.

Exactly.

Right.

Another ingredient was powdered opium.

So this was all part of the cure.

That's what they did with a lot of these cures.

Yes.

They got you high so you didn't feel the pain anymore.

Exactly.

With the alcohol and the opium, I mean that would do the trick.

Another one of my favorite collectibles is the sign from the clinkered brewery.

And you can see it here, Don.

Interesting story.

There's hardly any memorabilia from clinkered beer out there with the exception of some bottles, of course.

This sign took me 60 years to get.

When I was I think in eighth grade, my buddy's dad showed it to me in his basement.

He pointed to it and said, Jim, ever hear of this brand of beer?

I said, no.

Again, I was in eighth grade.

Later on I developed an interest in recines history.

I knew he had it, but he would never sell it.

So after he passed away, I asked my buddy if he would consider selling it.

And he said, no, it's a family heirloom.

Well, then two years ago, I got an email from my buddy's son who said, I need money for some new tires for my truck.

I'll sell you the sign.

Well, I almost fell over.

I couldn't believe it.

So again, it took me 60 years to get that sign.

He clinkered brewing company, Racine, Wisconsin.

Where were they located?

They were located across from the safety building downtown.

Part of the building is still there.

Now, where's the safety building?

That's on Washington Avenue, as you're approaching downtown.

The fire station.

Oh, okay, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The police station.

By the police station.

Right.

Yeah.

We'll get into the clinker a little bit later.

But so again, it takes over and damage it.

Yeah.

No, that's quite a right.

So it took you 60 years to get it.

It took me 60 seconds to destroy it.

Another one of my favorite things is the portable washing

machine from the Hamilton Beach Company.

This is pretty much a copper boiler with a Hamilton Beach

motor on the top and two plungers inside.

So when you turn it on, the plungers go up and down and they clean your clothes.

Interesting.

Many years ago, Hamilton Beach had a contest.

They wanted to see the oldest operating appliance that they made going back to the teens.

So I sent them photos of massage vibrators.

I sent them photos of drink mixers and this.

Well, they were so impressed with this.

They never saw one before.

They knew about it, but they never saw one.

So they asked if I could send it to them.

And they sent me a check for $50 and I did.

And they played around with it for probably a couple of months.

And they sent it back along with the catalog and said, Jim,

you can take anything into catalog that you want.

Oh, that's nice.

So I told my wife, see, collecting does pay on occasion.

So one of my other favorite things.

Is that in the Von Schrader bill now?

No.

The washing machine.

No, that's in my basement.

Do you use it?

Do you?

Oh, he never knows some time.

You know, a washing machine breaks down.

You might have to.

It's always good to have something in reserve.

I guess you could compete it on a rock too.

Which way?

Go ahead.

Another one of my favorite collectibles is an actual griffin from the old Venetian theater.

Many people think of it as a gargoyle, but it looks frightening.

It really does.

Yeah, those are those birds you used to see in the quarterstone on these buildings.

Yes, yes.

It's part line and part eagle.

It's four feet by, I think, three feet.

It looks to a kid.

It looks very frightening.

And there are only six of them that were inside that theater.

I have one.

I have one.

Marsh Meredith funeral home has one.

And three are in a collection of Fred Hermes, who used to have a theater in his basement.

He passed away, but it's still in his basement.

And according to Greek mythology, this thing would appear to you, this griffin, in the desert,

and it would ask you a riddle.

And if you did not give the correct answer, it would devour you.

So Don, I'm going to ask you the riddle.

Oh, no.

Yes.

And the riddle is, what creature starts life on all four legs and then goes to two legs and then three legs.

Don, that's it.

Four.

Four.

Then two.

And then to three.

Three.

A person.

You are correct.

How did you know that?

Well, we start off crawling.

Correct.

Yes.

And two legs.

Yes.

And later in life, we have a cane.

That's right.

So you won't be devoured.

Whoa.

You are safe.

Whoa.

Wow.

Whoa.

For anybody else.

You know what?

Normally, I couldn't think of that answer, but when your life depends on it.

Yes.

Yes.

You almost said you could think of this stuff.

Very good.

Very good.

All right.

All right.

So you passed the riddle.

You're allowed to live.

You know, my heart's rapidly beating all of a sudden.

Give me some of that.

You need some of this restorative, you're done.

Yeah.

Give me some of that stuff for the piles.

You need the piles too?

Okay.

It's 100 years old.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It probably still works.

Let me know if it works.

It's like the preparation age of our 100 years ago.

Yeah.

That's exactly right.

Yeah.

What a funny name.

Of course, we all know that Racine makes tractors and garbage disposers and wax products, industrial

goods, hair clippers, but we made many other products that we just don't know about.

So let's call this segment, gee, I didn't know that was made in Racine.

Let's do that in just a moment.

You got it.

Take a break here.

Wow.

I'm looking at this stuff here.

I can't wait to find out that old shoe is from.

That's not your shoe, is it?

Okay.

Not that old.

Okay.

We have an old shoe we're going to talk about.

And we'll put these pictures on our Facebook page.

You can see what we're talking about.

Okay.

So we'll do that later today.

It's $7.29.

I'm looking at this stuff here and I'm just getting scared that this was stuff people

actually used to use.

$7.28, $7.29 at WRGN Radio.

Home town radio refreshed to civic media station.

Jim Bessier, my guest here.

We'll talk more with Jim in just a moment.

Don't move.

There we are.

She ain't got one in her clothes.

A kind of fun in her hair.

It's kind of wild and free.

Oh, for the love of those.

Where my road's there it goes.

And nobody knows I'd be.

She talks kind of lazy.

And people say she's crazy.

And her lots of mystery.

Oh, for the love of those.

Where my road's there it goes.

And nobody knows I'd be.

There's something about her head on the mind.

It's a feeling that's fine.

And I just got to say.

Hey.

She's really got a magic spell.

And it's working so well.

And I can't get away.

I'm a lucky fella.

And I just got to tell her.

That I love her endlessly.

Because love grows.

Where my road's there it goes.

And nobody knows.

And nobody knows.

Where my road's there it goes.

And nobody knows.

It's like me.

Just telling Jim Maseer here that Tony Barrow's who's singing lead on this song.

Love grows.

There was no group called Edison Lighthouse.

It was a studio group that just came out to put out a few songs.

He also sang lead.

He also sang my baby loves loving.

The brotherhood of man united we stand.

The pickens give me that ding first class beach baby and Edison Lighthouse.

But that's what he did.

He sang lead on all these songs.

And there was a British show that actually had three of those bands at the same time on the show.

And he just came out each time and sang lead.

But the different sports jacket on.

But you know.

And he sang his collection from old Rossign and this is scary and amazing at the same time.

Some of this stuff.

Let's continue on.

All right.

Did you know that we made cigars here at one time Don?

Here's an example here.

We've seen that many cigar made.

Well, this is the box.

That's the box.

Correct.

Yeah.

They were just mom and pop operations, you know, they just employed a few cigar makers each.

The brands included the Bell City, the mischief rosebud, little bow peep and a few others.

The largest was the John Stofl cigar manufacturing company.

Silver plate.

Yes, we did make things for the finer things in life.

A good example of that is the recene silver plate.

I'm going to hand this over to you Don.

Now they were organized in 1875.

Is this silver?

Silver plate.

Silver plate.

Yeah.

Yeah, not solid silver.

We made such things as sugar bowls, coffee pots, pickle casters, syrup dispensers, napkin holders, cups and govets and silverware and many other things too.

Located near Second and Main Street downtown.

However, May 5, 1882.

And out of control, raging fire consumed seven square blocks south of the river, including the recene silver plate company.

And the fire was done.

All that was left was a bunch of melted silver and the smoke stack.

And it's ironic because the following year, the smoke stack was, came down when a tornado went through.

So they were just a bad luck company.

But this is beautiful.

This is a grand piano.

It's all engraved.

Yep.

The piano, all 88 keys.

I didn't count them.

Maybe there's not 88 down here.

But they, all the piano keys.

This is a gorgeous gift to be somebody.

Very intricate.

When did you get this in your collection?

Oh, my gosh.

I don't remember.

Who knows?

Wow.

This is just, this is beautiful.

Do you keep it at living room or anything like this?

No, in a basement.

In a basement.

That's of artwork like this.

I do.

I do.

I mean, look at the engraving on this.

This was done by hand.

This was not done by hand.

Sure.

Yeah.

Wow.

And the bottom, it says we've seen silver plate company on there.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

It does.

So we've seen silver plate.

Yep.

So made bicycles here.

I couldn't bring the one I have here, obviously.

But they were made by the BB manufacturing company.

They were made in the mid to late 1890s.

By 1890, the Mitchell Wagon company bought the bottom out

and changed the name to the Wisconsin Wheel Works.

And Wisconsin Wheel Works, of course, went on to become,

or they went on to make automobiles, the Mitchell car.

I have one in my collection and it's completely drivable,

although I never took it out for a spin yet.

Now, where do you keep that?

A basement?

Oh, yeah.

You put a car in your basement?

Not a car, a bicycle.

Oh, the Mitchell bicycle.

Yeah.

That's like the Mitchell car.

No, no.

This guy got this basement.

Let's see what else.

We also made automobile tires here.

Not one, but we had two tire manufacturers.

The Racine Robert Company on Taylor Avenue.

Many of you remembered the old Cran's building.

That was the original Racine Robert Company.

They tore that down many years ago.

It was a gigantic five-story building.

Another company was the Horseshoe Robert Company on State Street.

Now, who heard of Robertville?

Actually, it's not Robertville.

Yes, it's on Victory Avenue.

And your republic?

It's down the block.

Yep, that's right.

A hundred homes were constructed by the Racine Robert Company

to provide low cost housing for the workers.

Now, they were all duplexes,

close together, and looked exactly the same.

And they're still there.

They're still there right down the block here.

Exactly.

One of our people used to work here, lived in there.

Sure.

And when I first came to the station,

he said, I live in Robertville.

Yep.

I looked on a map.

Where's that?

Robertville.

This is Racine, I see Caledonia.

Where's Robertville?

Yep.

He goes, it's not on the map.

It's right down the block.

You're from Racine.

You know where Robertville is.

Yeah.

We also made shoes here, Don.

We had a couple factories here at one time.

The earliest was the Miller shoe company.

The last shoe factory here was the Racine shoe manufacturing company

on Mound and Marquette.

The building is still there.

Now, I think it's post-terrino decorating.

But we also made an aluminum shoe.

The base is aluminum.

And I know you saw this before, Don.

But take a look at it.

Holy and macro.

Whoa, it's heavy.

Yeah, it's heavy.

Okay.

As you can see, the sole is made of aluminum.

And that would have been for found-be-workers, miners,

and loggers, you know, people who wore out their shoes.

Now, let me tell you, before I got the job as a janitor

at a radio station when I was 18 years old,

my mother, who worked for the county,

said, I can get you a job on a garbage truck.

Oh.

And I said to the guy, can I drive it?

He goes, no, you'll pick up the,

this is before they have the ones where you can just hook it up

and it pours the garbage.

Oh, yeah.

You actually physically had to pick up the garbage pales

and dump them in there.

Wow.

And he said, you'll do that, but you need steel tip shoes.

It's a requirement that the union requires steel tip shoes.

But not the whole shoe at the bottom.

Oh, yeah.

But these were steel tip shoes.

You know, how come I got that job?

I just got out of high school and I was going to relax

that summer.

And my father said, no, no, you're going to get a job.

Even if the pick your nose for a living, you're going to get a job.

I remember my father said, my father had a great way with words.

But yeah, steel tip shoes.

This, the whole shoe.

The whole shoe.

Right.

They're horrible to walk in.

I was just scared.

It's my size, actually.

So I did walk around with them.

You can't bend though with that.

You can't bend over.

Yeah.

And you can't do anything with it.

No, you can't.

Because it's, it's, it's, the whole bottom is metal.

Right.

If you saw a hundred dollar bill on the floor, you could not pick it up.

You have to, you have to gen you flicked to pick it up.

We got to put a picture of this on our Facebook page.

Sure.

Holy man.

What's, what size shoe is it?

It's like about 11 maybe.

Yeah.

I, I wear a 12, 12 and a half.

So I can't wear it.

But this is heavy.

I don't know how you'd walk around in this thing.

Oh my gosh.

Take some used to, to walking with that.

And where do they, at the foundries?

What the foundries, if you were a logger, you know.

Who sold these shoes?

Um, they actually, you had to go through the factory.

And we've seen we had a number of shoe factories that made those.

So they just had catalogues.

They send out.

I can't imagine wearing one of these.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

First of all, you couldn't drive a car with them.

No.

You could have led feet.

That's right.

You would have a led foot, right?

You get it.

People imagine getting stopped.

And you have to take the, uh, the drunk test from the cop.

Yeah.

You said, walk this like clomp, clomp, clomp.

Here you go.

Take this back because I don't want it to break.

You can try it later.

That is something.

Oh, yeah.

See, that's why I told Jim during the break, we never leave open bottles of water in the

studio.

And the reason we don't is because sometimes they tip over.

So Jim took the shoe back and knocked the bottle of water over.

But this time he had the cap on the bus.

Yes.

That's why we do that.

Good advice.

Good advice.

Did you know that we had another multi-milk company in Racine besides Horlick?

People are going to say, what?

And the answer is yes.

It was called the White Cross Food Company.

And get this.

It was started by a relative of Horlick, one Arnold Horlick who started the White Cross Food Company

back in the mid-twenties.

Now, he wasn't very successful.

It was less than two years, maybe a year and a half before he finally gave up.

But he just couldn't compete with his relative.

I guess there was a little friendly competition there, though.

We also made an electric washing machine at one time.

Now, this was a wooden one, round, full size.

It was made by the Arnold Electric Company, every scene.

And they were later purchased by Hamilton Beach.

According to their catalog, it took two hours to finish a load of wash.

It cost $75 back in 1917, which is equivalent to about $1,200 now.

It weighs over 240 pounds.

It took three guys to bring it down into my basement.

Now, that's another item, Don, which will be staying in my basement someday.

Whoever buys his house is getting the whole museum.

That's right.

Along with two very heavy mangles, they're going to be permanent residents there, too.

They just can't come up.

It's just too heavy.

So, unless you call a company that specializes in that, you know, Norby or whatever,

but I think they're going to be down there permanently.

But we made a number of products here that people just don't know about.

Baskets.

We had two basket factories in Racine, the Bell City Basket Company and the Racine Basket Company.

They were located at 14th Street and Clark Streets.

Their capacity was about 15,000 baskets a day.

And they were used for primarily closed baskets and baskets for fruits and vegetables.

Of course, one of my favorites of products we made here is beer.

We had a number of breweries here at one time.

The largest was the Clinkert Brewing Company, which we talked about a little bit.

They were located on Washington Avenue and 8th Street.

They had a closed due to prohibition, which ran from 1920 to 1933.

After 1933, we were allowed to consume beer again, but at that point,

Clinkert tried to reopen the brewery, but financing was just impossible to come by due to the depression.

And besides, Clinkert was 88 years old.

Part of the old brewery is still there.

You can see it if you're driving down Washington Avenue.

Look on the west side, the old bottling department is still there.

Okay, so I'm trying to picture you say it's near the safety building?

Well, south at a safety building.

Yeah, south.

On the west side of Washington Avenue.

Okay, so you can see it from Washington Avenue.

Yes, you can.

It's not on, is it on?

It is right on Washington.

Yeah, just on the west side.

So when you get past City Hall,

then keep on going south, pass the safety building to fire in the police station.

Right, go pass the police station.

I made another block or so.

Look on your right hand side.

Okay, I am.

I'm going to do it today.

Yeah, you can't miss it.

It looks like a very old...

Do you know what's on the building?

Does it say anything on it?

No, well, there's a...

I think there's a Clinkert name stone if you look hard enough.

Oh, the stone is still so secret.

Yeah.

Okay, that's good.

Yep.

Another brewery we had here was the Weber Brothers brewery,

and they were located on Michigan Boulevard.

We're the ban shell.

Pretty much stands now.

In 1912, they were destroyed by fire, though.

So it was right there in the lakefront by the...

Yep.

They're the ban shell.

Yes, you can borrow it.

Right there.

See, a little hill.

You walk past these places every single day when I walk my dog.

Yeah.

And I never knew what was there.

What was there?

That's right.

That's right.

Yes.

We also made phonographs here at one time.

In 1921, Frederick Blandon started making phonographs

at the Racine Business Center,

where our exhibit is, our museum.

Now, what he did not know was that there were over 400 other companies

also making them.

So, pretty soon supply outpaced demand,

and he was stuck with a lot of them.

Many companies just went out of business.

He was able to stay in business until 1928.

Now, we have three of them at our exhibit,

and Don, you probably saw them.

They all work.

So next time you come there,

let the fire them up for you.

You can check it out yourself.

But as funny when kids look at it,

they say, well, how does that work?

Where do you plug it in?

Well, you don't plug it in.

You crank it up.

You crank it up.

You crank it up.

You know, it's like they're so bewildered.

They'd never seen anything like that.

Our neighbor had a phonograph.

You cranked up.

Yeah.

And we used to bring it around with our wagons in the neighborhood

and play music for people,

because you didn't need electricity.

Right.

You cranked it up, and it played.

Yep.

All right.

Well, we're going to check it with Carol G.

And Forte in just a moment.

She's out in Arizona.

She was so afraid of the cold.

And we're having gorgeous weather here.

That's what those people do in Arizona and Florida.

They panic when they first frosty.

It's when they run.

Anyway, we'll check in with Carol.

That's your partner in doing all this stuff.

Yep.

Wow.

This is great.

It's 749 to WRJ and Radio Gymnasium.

I guess we're talking about some of these products here.

Again, we'll take pictures and post them on our Facebook page

for you.

You know what we're talking about?

I can't get over that shoe.

And that 100-year-old medicine that's still in the bottle.

Hey, piles.

We got to have that.

Stop saying that.

People are getting breakfast.

I'm Don Rose.

And thanks for joining us here at Civic Media Station.

Hulktown Radio over fresh.

WRJ and 1400 AM, 99.9 in 98.1 FM.

It's 751 at WRJ and Carol T and 4-day is joining us now.

Live from Arizona.

See, you left and it was 55 degrees the other day, Carol.

And you left here.

We're sitting out in our bathing suits and having barbecue.

And you ran Arizona to get away from everything.

You know, God, I was thinking when I thought maybe you'd call

how the temperatures are so relative.

Because I'm so glad you have the heat wave going on there.

And I was still there when it was so cold in the snow.

But now when you're here in Arizona,

well, it's Carol.

It's 29 degrees here right now.

So it's not exactly a heat wave.

But if it's 55 degrees here, we're wearing our coats.

Yeah, I know.

My daughter lives in Florida.

I'm always hearing the hard luck stories.

So Jim brought in all this memorabilia